Work Text:
(You see him through the bars of a cage in an Antaam war camp and you’re not sure who’s more surprised: you, or him.
“Varric?” you say, because you know him. Remember a handful of conversations from your brief stint with the Inquisition. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, you know, here on holiday,” he says dryly, hands resting on the cage door, but his eyes glint with mirth. “What about you?”
You glance around, making sure no wayward ears have overheard you yet. You know how to be quiet, but he doesn’t, and you can’t risk getting caught just yet. Surprise is about the only element you have right now. “I’m freeing these people.”
“There’s Antaam crawling every inch of this place,” he hisses, which, yeah, you’d known, you think, fixing him with a raised brow. “Any idea what you're going to do about them?”
“Kill them,” you say, because that was about as far as you'd planned and it's all you really need to know, anyway.
“Alright, Rook,” he says, rolling his eyes. You remember this. His penchant for nicknames, all of them terrible in the way they stick like tar to feathers. “How about you bust me out of this cage and we can think of a real plan, alright?”
And you, for lack of anything better to do, say yes.
You will regret this later.
You always do.)
Rook is back from the Fade.
Rook is back from the Fade, but it doesn’t seem like all of them made it back, most days. Like the battle at Tearstone Island took something from them that they’ll never get back. Like Varric, the memory of him, has been cut into them like a scar.
They haven’t talked about it. Neve is, however, a good detective.
It isn't what she sees that’s so concerning— it’s what is missing.
She clocked the change as it happened; had assumed, really, that three weeks in the Fade would change anyone. The list grows, etched into a dog-eared page of her case notes.
Rook never wore their emotions on their face, stoic and surly until you chipped through the sharp exterior. Plenty enough to read, if you knew where to look.
They haven't talked about it. Nothing more than a few words when Emmrich pulled them through the rift— Fade prison and I’m fine and it doesn't matter and how long has it been? and that lost, wide-eyed look of uncertainty, like three weeks later they still weren't sure— and after all that, they'd planned a siege, so Neve will forgive that there hasn't really been time to talk about it until now. That doesn't mean she hasn't noticed.
Gone, now, is the dry wit that often pulled at the corner of their lips. The absolute confidence. The fiercely protective furrow of their brow. The warm spark in their eyes, skipping rocks on the Dock Town wharf. That shy affection, quiet reverence.
No one knows when they last slept. As a Crow, they’re very good at disappearing when they don’t want to be found, which used to be useful and endearing until it added to the self-destruction.
No one knows when they last ate. Lucanis hasn’t seen them in the kitchen, and for someone of his sleep schedule, that’s more than enough reason to warrant concern.
Because Rook is back from the Fade, but only physically, really. Different, still, even in that. Dark bags hang beneath their eyes like bruises, a little paler, a little thinner. A new scar cuts down their cheek that Neve doesn't recall seeing there before. They haunt the vessel of their body and wander the Lighthouse like a restless ghost.
It’s been three days. They can’t keep this up forever, but Rook has always been stubborn. An intervention may be necessary, before the wound festers more.
She’ll talk to the others, she thinks, watching them from across the courtyard. Bent over to run a hand down Assan’s head, murmuring to him quietly. She can’t hear what they’re saying from the doorway of her office, but Assan presses closer, so she gets the gist.
She’ll talk to the others.
Just… not yet. Not until she has a clear case.
(You never meant to kill him. That’s what you tell them, anyways.
You’d found him on top of your brother— just a brother, back then, and not the Inquisitor. You don’t know the boy’s name, but it doesn’t matter. The world narrows into points, anyway. The boy’s bloody knuckles, blood-streaked auburn hair, a broken cry for help.
You are eleven winters and angry always, but now, now, the rage that fills you is animal. You are upon him in an instant like a wolf, teeth digging into his ear, knife biting into a soft, juvenile stomach.
You never meant to kill him. You’d only meant to make it hurt.)
The Lighthouse wisps are all aflutter. Gentle spirits of curiosity, little whims, passing thoughts, all of them ill at ease.
They linger outside of the rounded doorway into the music room. Chitters and chirps coming into clarity as Emmrich descends the stairwell toward them.
Hurt. Memory. Dream. Where?
This, of course, scarcely comes as a surprise. It’s only natural that the wisps would flock around Rook, given how concerned he and the others have been as to their whereabouts and wellbeing as of late. Rook can hide from anyone, but in moments like these, it makes them rather easy to find.
“Off you go, little ones,” Emmrich says with a gentle wave. “I will go speak with them.”
Another flurry of unrest, but the wisps do scatter and depart. Emmrich steps into the music room. Rook is perched on the windowsill of one of the small, arched windows of the far wall, staring out into the hazy orange of the Fade.
They haven't talked about it. Emmrich would have mourned the opportunity had there been any, but Rook’s presence has been fleeting in the days after. This is the first he’s seen of them personally since the immediate aftermath. They’d descended from Elgar’nan’s throne with Bellara in their arms, Harding and Taash supporting a grievously wounded Davrin, and there had been no short need of healers. Emmrich has been busy. Rook has been, too.
Still, though, it’s hardly any excuse for how remiss he’s been.
“Rook,” he says by way of greeting, folding his hands in front of himself. “There you are. You have the wisps all worried.”
Their head tilts, then turns. They look haggard. Unwell.
“How are you faring, my dear?” he asks, softer, more sincere. Typically, he and Rook are more aligned in their light jabs at humor, especially over the macabre. This does not appear to be one of those moments.
“I’m fine,” Rook says stiffly.
Emmrich watches them for a long moment, noting the taut inflection like an animal realizing it’s been backed into a corner. “Are you?”
“I have to be. Someone has to be. What other choice is there? He told me to take care of the team. So that’s what I’ve been doing. What I was doing.” They snort, gaze slanting away, back out the window to the endless sky beyond. “Tried to, anyway.”
He. So this is about Varric, after all. He should have known. Wisps are often drawn to the remembrance of the dead. “Rook, what about you?” he asks, careful to keep his voice low. “Have you been taking care of yourself?”
Rook blinks, slow and uncomprehending, and Emmrich thinks oh, here is a problem. “I’m fine,” they say again. Like repeating it will make it so. “You can tell the wisps not to worry.”
“I don’t think it has much to do with the wisps alone,” he points out. “We’ve all been concerned.”
Which is, perhaps, the wrong thing to say, the way Rook’s expression shutters, walls up in an instant.
“Rook—”
“It’s fine,” Rook says, getting to their feet. Emmrich can hear the snap of bones shifting into place, the subtle wince that furrows their brow. “You don’t need to be. I’m taking care of it.”
(You kill a boy by accident and it is the end of some things and the start of others.
The Keeper can’t let it stand, of course. Your brother, the Inquisitor, who loves you almost as much as you love him, cannot save you. He is twelve and badly beaten.
They ask you why you killed him. You can’t tell them the truth. You don’t think they’ll believe you if you’d said you only meant to hurt him in ways that would hurt forever. They ask you if you regret it. You can’t lie to them. You don’t regret it and you’d do it again, do it every day for as long as he still had blood to bleed.
You are exiled, eleven winters and full of rage. And you may be a fighter, but you don’t fight this. You will preserve your brother’s dignity. The Keeper says another clan will pass this way soon, and that you may be able to earn forgiveness with them.
You are not found by another clan.
Tevinter slavers find you first. You lose a lot of things after that.)
Manfred finds them leaning against the bannister of the balcony that overlooks the Lighthouse courtyard. Day and night hold no concept in the Fade, but the space is lulled with the quiet of sleep. Rook is the only person awake right now, which thus leaves them as the only person to serve.
“Tea,” he hisses, holding out the tray. His vocabulary grows by the day. It makes Emmrich happy, and Manfred likes making people happy.
Rook turns to him, not startled, exactly, but quickly, like they’d only just noticed him. Which is odd, because he is not quiet and was not trying to be, and Rook notices everything.
“Oh,” they exhale, shoulders dropping from where they'd hiked up. They reach out to take one of the cups, and then they just hold it for a moment, looking at it like it is something foreign, like they’d forgotten the shape of anything in their hands but a dagger. “Thanks, Fred.”
Manfred's head bobbles in a nod. “Welcome,” he says.
Rook’s smile is fleeting, wry and thin. They turn back to the courtyard. They don’t drink the tea, and the tension from before builds itself back up, second by second.
“Okay?” Manfred asks, because this is not like Rook. Not like the Rook he has seen. Strong, steady, stoic Rook, who loves hard and protects them and is always, always okay.
“I'm fine, Manfred,” Rook says. Hollow, not strong. Shaky, not stoic. They look like Emmrich does whenever he talks about Hezenkoss. “I'm always fine.”
“Lie,” Manfred rasps. Slow, clunky, curious.
Rook laughs, a dry husk of breath. “Yeah,” they say. The bags beneath their eyes are deep and dark. This is the fourth time Manfred has found them like this. It will not be the last. “But that can be our secret, right?”
Tea will not fix all the hurt they carry. It will not bring back whatever they lost. But this secret, this one thing they have left, Manfred can help then keep. If it makes them happy.
“Secret,” Manfred confirms.
(The mirror head sits on your nightstand like an effigy.
You can’t stand it. You haven’t touched it since your return, the wound too tender, the weight too heavy. It’s been three weeks since you crawled out of that rift. Three weeks since you watched the only father you’ve ever had die for the second time. His absence is a cavity in your chest. The grief has become you and this room is a mausoleum of loss.
You can’t keep hiding forever. The truth won’t be unmade by virtue of wanting. Varric is dead, his burdens yours by rite of passage, an heir to the disaster he dragged you into. It’s just a mirror. An object. You can look at it, one last time. Try to see whatever it was that he saw. You can do that for him. You must.
You uncurl slowly from where you’ve been sitting for hours, limbs groaning with pain. It takes longer, still, to cross the three steps to where it sits. Old metal, a pale layer of dust. Face down, right where you left it. You reach out and pick it up, your reflection meeting your gaze in the slightly yellowed surface.
Take a long, hard look in it, kid. It’ll always show the face of a hero who can get it done.
Four days since you killed two gods and trapped Varric’s murderer in the Fade forever. You’ve been waiting for it to feel like it matters. Waiting for it to feel like it’s over. Waiting for it to be done. You’d promised him, hadn’t you? You promised you would see it through, but when does it end? You wish he’d been more specific. You wish he were here. The gall, to dump this on you and then just— the nerve to—
You already have everything you need.
With a furious, strangled noise you throw it against the wall, battered metal denting easily against the force of the stone. It clatters to the floor, shards of glass and grief cutting into your hands as you hunch over your knees and cry, and cry, and cry.)
Taash smells the blood before they see Rook.
A tip from Neve had pointed them in the right direction. Something about Rook running off through the eluvian to go fight Antaam in Rivain. The gods’ forces are scattered now in the days after, but not gone entirely. Plenty to hunt, if one was looking for a fight, so Taash hadn’t been all that surprised to be pointed in this direction.
What is a surprise, though, is the mess. Rook is an assassin; they fight clean. This has always been an established fact. Quick cuts, elegant draws, every move a polished flourish, some intricate blend of Antivan fencing and something grittier, less personal profession and more primal rage.
Antaam bodies lie everywhere. Rook stands in the middle of it all, both blades drawn, chest heaving. Strewn with blood, their hands wrapped in thick layers of gauze that’s starting to bleed through. Those cuts couldn’t have come from the fight— must have torn something open down there. Their eyes are glassy, unfocused. A drop of Antaam blood cuts down the side of their face.
“Hey,” Taash says, continuing their approach.
Rook doesn't respond. They must know Taash has been looking for them. Must be at least part of why they're making this so hard.
“You can't keep running away from this,” Taash says louder, swinging an axe down at a still-twitching body and relishing in the wet crunch. “You reek of blood— I’d find you anyways. So, let's do this.”
“Do what?” Rook says, finally turning to look at them. Something dangerous lurks there in the subtle frown, the wrinkle of their brow.
“We’re fighting. You like fighting people, right?” Taash says bluntly. “You told me once that you hated every problem you couldn’t stab or kill, so let’s fight.”
Rook grits their teeth, but they don’t move.
Fuck it, Taash thinks, and then they rush forward and swing an axe in a wide arc. Rook steps back with an easy dodge and catches the follow-up in the crossguard of their short blade. Taash doesn’t give them time to think, time to doubt. They strike again, and Rook evades nimbly, pressing in swiftly as they draw both swords up toward Taash’s chest.
Taash is ready for it, shoves their blades down toward the sand with a huff that tastes like cinder. “Stop making this harder than it needs to be. We all know how it feels to lose someone. I know how it feels to lose a parent.”
Rook curves their rapier upwards, a sloppy arc, angry but fast. It shears off a few blades of hair. “At least you knew yours was alive!”
Taash doesn't know what that's supposed to mean.
Rook attacks again, kicking Taash squarely in the stomach and shoving them back a few paces, boots digging into the sand. The next blow will be one to kill, Taash realizes, recognizing now the steely glint in Rook’s eyes for what it is. It’s the look they get whenever they’re about to do something lethal.
They haven’t talked about it, but Taash is starting to think they might have to, and there’s no time like the present.
They drop one of their axes, grabbing Rook’s arm when they step close to swing and holding their gaze until they realize the fight’s over, the edge of their shorter blade inches from Taash’s neck. Their chest is heaving, not with exertion, but with a rage, barely contained in the shell of their bones. Taash knows the feeling. Watches it bleed out of them, heartbeat by heartbeat.
“What happened to you was wrong,” Taash says slowly, needing Rook to hear it in a way Taash thinks they haven't, lately.
Rook grunts, pulling away roughly, wiping their blade on their arm before sheathing it. The pale, bone white of their hair is ruddy with blood, streaked across their face, none of it theirs. “Doesn’t matter— it happened anyway. Nothing’s going to change that. No amount of fighting or killing will make that right.”
“Why not?” Taash is always one for simple solutions.
“Because I can’t kill him,” Rook bites out. “I can’t kill Solas.”
Which… is not a simple solution. Taash sighs, picking up their axe from the sand. “No, guess not. Plenty else that’s bad to kill, though.”
“If killing two gods didn’t fix it, nothing else will,” Rook says. They don’t even sound angry anymore, just tired, resigned. No amount of spilled blood makes it the right body. Taash will accept that it isn’t fair, at least, that they got to kill their mother’s killer, while Solas remains eternally out of reach. Rook would have to sacrifice the world to sate their revenge, and Taash thinks it’s not that they don’t want to, it’s that they do.
“I’m sorry,” Taash offers. It’s all they have. “For what it’s worth.”
Rook’s shoulders tense, jaw clenched and working. Taash can’t read their expression from this angle anymore.
“Yeah,” they say eventually, voice rough. “So am I.”
(Taash steps into the room. It smells strongly of herbs and poultices, cleaning fluids with a tang of iron.
A folded set of clothes sits on the bed in the back right corner. They’ve always been there, and Taash hadn’t thought much about it until now. Hadn’t had reason to, but they recognize this for what it is now. This is a grave. A memorial. This is the same thing as the horn resting against their breastbone.
Taash reaches out, running their fingers along the coarse fabric. Worn by time, stained along the collar. A man that they will never meet, but so present in his loss. “I didn’t know you, but I would have kept you,” they say. “Rook loved you. That would have been enough.”
They’ll never fully know who he was. What Solas did to him. To Rook. But this feels like something, Taash thinks. It’s the most they can offer right now that feels like it matters.)
Lucanis has a catalogue of everyone’s favorite foods. No one knows about it except Bellara, who had done nothing upon its discovery except offer helpful insight and make small adjustments. Fish fry for Neve. Tortes for Emmrich. Hearth cakes for Rook.
It’s a simple dish, one he had not expected for someone so-well travelled. Someone from Antiva. It had only been recently he’d learned that they’re not Antivan at all, which explains the strange accent— they’re clan-born. Displaced. They don’t talk about it more than that.
Hearth cakes. Little more than butter, flour, sugar, and a skillet. It’s hardly edible, but comfort is comfort, even in this form, and he has been planning this for too long to err now. He does not tamper with the recipe Bellara taught him. He makes it as it is, sets the table, and waits for Taash to do their part.
The door swings open, fast and aggravated.
“Taash, I told you, I—”
Rook freezes as they enter, taking in who and what lies in front of them. They draw back their shoulders, immediately on guard, which Lucanis should have expected but is nonetheless disheartened to find.
“Lucanis,” Rook says, one hand still on the handle, one foot still out the door. “What’s this about?”
“I made hearth cakes,” he says, which is a terrible way to start, but he can’t think of anything better that isn’t dropping the truth in front of them both. They haven’t talked about it, and he isn’t about to, now. He is far from the person that should host that conversation.
Rook arches a brow, but they hazard a step closer, slowly sliding into the seat closest to the exit. A quick escape, if needed. He gets it. He tries not to let it ruffle him.
“I can see that,” they drawl. “You don’t make those by accident. Bellara only made them when she felt like shit about Cyrian. I’m not stupid.”
Spite snaps at him, and he winces, pushing the plate closer. This is the closest he can get to an apology right now. It’s possibly the closest they’ll let him get— it’s not like their history is uncomplicated. The tables have turned, now, and they’re lost in the rage of their grief and he’s the one standing on the outside, now, and he’s at a total loss as to what to do. How to handle that. He’s not the leader they are; he’s not a pillar to stand on. He’s not made of sturdy enough stuff for that. His talents are uniquely tuned.
So, hearth cakes.
“You haven’t been eating.” Lucanis closes his eyes, breathes deeply for a moment, shoves aside Spite gnashing in his ear to be more insistent. “Please.”
Rook stares at him long enough that he thinks they may not have heard him. Then, after a moment more, they move. Stalled motions, picking up their fork and slowly placing a bite in their mouth. They chew. And chew.
“It’s good,” they say.
Lucanis isn’t fooled. “Then swallow.”
Rook’s brows draw, but they swallow slowly with a grimace. Then, turning, they retch down the side of the table.
(Lucanis remembers the argument. It's not one of his proudest moments.
Rook, returning to Treviso after driving off a dragon in Minrathous. He understands the decision now, but he hadn’t then, blinded by rage and an entitled sense of betrayal. He remembers clipped worse descending into anger, remembers yelling, remembers pressing them into the wall with Spite in his ear and a blade at their neck.
You betrayed your people, he’d growled. Your family.
Fuck this family, Rook had said back, eyes bright, undaunted. Where was this vigilante justice ten years ago?! What do I owe you people? You bought me from slavery and thought that was enough to warrant love? You don’t know the Crows, Lucanis. You know privilege and an assassin’s fever dream. You don’t know how it is.
So you would let them all die?! he’d said then, unwilling to believe it, unable to comprehend the truth through his grief. After what they did for you? Their blood is on your hands!
Rook had rolled their eyes, and he would have killed them then if he’d been any more incensed at that moment. They can get in line, they’d said. You can add it to the list of things to blame me for.
Fuck you, Lucanis had spat.
Yes, yes, Rook had said, but it was like the fight had gone out of them, weary acceptance left in its wake. They’d stepped forward into the sharp edge of his dagger like they were giving him one last chance to finish the job, then shoved past, stalking into the shadows of his city. Fuck me. )
Rook is gone— checking on things in Arlathan, they'd said, so the rest of the Veilguard gathers in the library. These small meetings had been Neve’s idea, four days ago when she first brought up her suspicions. Davrin’s not entirely sure they've been working, but he's been on bed rest for most of the time, anyway, so this is the first meeting he's actually managed to make.
“The food didn’t work,” Lucanis says, crossing his arms over his chest.
Bellara frowns. She's looking better by the day, but Davrin can still feel the last dredges of the blight in her, slowly working their way out. “It didn't? Rook loves hearth cakes.”
“I followed the recipe exactly. There's no reason they should have puked it up!” Lucanis snaps, and it sounds a little too much like Spite for Davrin to be wholly convinced it isn't.
“It's a common stress response,” Neve says from her perch. “I'm not entirely surprised.”
Taash grunts. “What's there to be stressed about? The fight’s over. We won.”
Lace shrugs, a faraway look in her eye from where she's watching the stairwell down to the eluvian. “They've been fighting a long time. Longer than I've known them. It's not easy to give that up.”
“I can’t believe the food didn’t work,” Lucanis mutters, more to himself this time.
“What about alcohol?” Taash says.
Lace winces. “I dunno, that feels manipulative, doesn’t it?”
“Is it manipulative if they talk freely under its influence? It’s not like we’re giving them truth serum,” Neve points out.
Emmrich makes a vague noise of dissent. “I feel as though we should not encourage unhealthy habits of coping, especially when the heart of the issue continues to elude us. It did take us an inordinate amount of time to realize how little we know about them. It won't be easy to start now.”
“Alcohol,” Taash says, with a there you have it motion of the hand.
Bellara and Lace look like they're going to protest, so Davrin clears his throat, the space between his lungs flaring with pain. At least it gets everyone to be quiet for a moment.
“How about this,” he says, watching them all one by one. “We try the alcohol. I don't like it either, but we have to get a foothold somehow. If that turns up nothing, I'll try things my way.”
Lucanis crosses his arms. “And what is ‘your way,’ exactly?”
The corner of Davrin’s lip tugs at a smile. “A little trip to the Anderfels. I think we've been looking at it all wrong— it’s not what they aren't saying that we should be paying attention to, it's what they’re doing. The pacing, the restlessness. Who knows when they last slept. It’ll give eventually. We just have to be there when it does.”
(They recruit Isabela. She's the only person in Thedas that could make drinking into unconsciousness sound appealing.
Isabela doesn’t even know why her presence is necessary— Rook is an extremely agreeable person, if you drag them into it without giving them a chance to protest and offer to pay for everything.
She keeps sliding them tall glasses of liquor she could clean her boots with, and they keep downing them, and it only takes an hour or two before they’re flat on the floor in front of her hearth in the ship she calls home, staring at the last few logs as they fight to survive the heat.
Isabela is drunk, and she’s happy, and Rook is so agreeably non-present like this that she just starts talking. About Aveline, and how she and Rook would have so much in common. Merrill. The Arishok.
Varric. Her breath catches but Rook looks a little more awake, a little more like a person and less like the shell of one, so she barrels on. Talks about a bastard cheater she knew and the twinkle in his eye, like he always saw straight to the heart of you. She talks about Hawke. It’s been so long since she last did she thought she’d forgotten how, but the words are suddenly there in droves and she forces them out like she’s pulling glass from her teeth. It hurts, but she relishes in it a little, because finally, after ten long years here is someone who understands.
“I’m sorry about your… about Hawke,” Rook says lamely. It’s the first they’ve spoken in hours, now, at the end of her tirade. It’s sweet, though, that they mean it.
Isabela snorts, loathing that her eyes grow a little misty at that. “Thanks. I’m sorry about Varric.”
“Thanks.”
She swirls her bottle, watching the liquid go around and around, lazy circles that make her head feel warm. It’s better than anything else she might be feeling in any other state. Any more sober and she’d be in pieces. “Grief and love are such ugly, complicated things, aren’t they?”
Rook hums. They’re both drunk enough that she can’t read their expression, which is generally neutral, anyways, but they’re staring into their cup like it holds some unknown answer in the last few drops of whiskey lingering there. “Yeah. Wouldn’t trade the hurt for anything, though.”
Isabela snorts a laugh, because isn’t that the worst part— no matter how much the memory of Hawke hurts, it’s better than never having Hawke at all. The hurt is proof that it happened. The hurt means it mattered. “No. I guess not.”
Rook turns to look at the side of her face. They look softer like this. Younger. “Does it ever get easier?”
It would be easy to lie, Isabela thinks. She's very good at it, and it would probably make things better for Rook in the long run, but she runs a hand over her breastbone, feels the full beat of that useless lump in her chest that still hurts whenever she thinks of Hawke, and she finds she can't. She wouldn't. She won't.
“No,” she admits with a sigh, tipping back the last of her bottle and letting it force down the lump in her throat. “You learn to live with it, but it's always there. That hollow space. It'll never go away.”
Rook doesn't say anything to that, so Isabela doesn't continue, and they sit and watch the fire until a restless slumber takes them both.
Isabela wakes up with a crick in her neck and dirt in her mouth, empty glass glinting off the embers of a dying fireplace.
Rook is already gone.)
Davrin’s version of doing things his way means dragging Rook out of their room under the guise of checking on the griffons. It’s not a total lie— and besides, he knows Rook has a soft spot for them, when they think nobody’s looking. They agree, but they look like a hungover, warmed-over piece shit, so they probably would have said yes to anything.
He’s still tender from his own near-death, so he’s not actively helping in the exercises today. Those are being fielded by Antoine and Evka, both of whom were thrilled to see Rook until they saw the state they were in, and that excitement curled into thinly-veiled concern.
He and Rook are sitting on one of the hay-piles they use to stuff the dummies. Rook’s arms are folded over their chest, and they keep nodding off and then shaking awake, fighting tooth and nail to keep an eye on Assan from where he’s running around making Antoine’s life miserable.
And, hey, Davrin gets it. He’s worried about Assan disappearing, too. He’d been sick with worry for days hearing Assan had dived after him into the blight, even though he knows it’s the only reason he’s still here. He thinks Rook is worried about a whole lot more than they’re letting on, though.
They haven’t talked about it, and Davrin thinks about it, but now isn’t the time. Not like this. Rook is hardly in any state for a conversation like that. He settles a hand on their shoulder and they startle, head swiveling in his direction, belated bewilderment.
“We're gonna run some drills,” he says, low and steady. “You wanna rest your eyes for a minute? I’ll keep an eye on them.”
Rook hesitates, and he can see the fight as it plays out, exhaustion warring with paranoia. That ever-present fear that the moment they close their eyes, something is going to happen. Something will disappear. He gets it. He does.
“You’ll keep watch?” they ask.
“On my honor,” he says, and he musters up a smile to sell it. “I’ll wake you up when we finish— we won’t be long.”
Rook’s head bobs in a slow nod. “Alright,” they say slowly. “Just— just for a little while. I’ll… I’ll just rest my eyes.”
“Just for a little while,” he echoes. He leans down to press a kiss into their hair, iron and smoke. He hates that he has to lie to them. Hates that it’s necessary right now, and knows they’ll get mad at him later when they realize the ruse, but he doesn’t regret it. Not if it works. For that, he’ll do whatever it takes.
(Antoine spares Rook a glance between feeding one griffon and the next. Dozing in a pile of hay, Assan draped over their midsection. Not asleep, he thinks, but in some state of uneasy unconsciousness.
“It’s good they’re sleeping,” he says, sure to keep his voice low so as to not disturb them. Davrin and Evka look up from where they’re stuffing hay into one of the training dummies.
“Who, Rook?” Evka asks. Antoine hums.
“They look…” he pauses to try to find a diplomatic word for it, “terrible.”
Davrin turns to follow his gaze, his gaze softening as it falls on them. “We know,” he says. “We’ve been trying to get them to sleep for days. I’ll take this as a small victory in that fight.”
“What happened to them?” Evka asks. Antoine knows that little shake in her voice, that thinly-veiled concern, batting down the hatches in preparation to fight some unseen, unknown threat. Rook has done so much for them. For the Wardens. For everyone. And what have they asked for in return? What did they miss, somewhere along the way?
“That's the problem,” Davrin sighs, a deep exhale that cuts to the bone. “We don’t really know.”)
“Rook, can I come in?”
Bellara supposes, in hindsight, that it’s a bit of a silly question, considering she’s already in the room, knuckles rapping belatedly against the door. She hasn’t been in Rook’s room since before the attack. It’s exactly as she remembers, but also not. The old mirror they had is shattered in pieces on the floor in one of the corners. Spots of dry, ruddy blood. Rook sits curled on their chaise, staring at the mess, fist pressed against their mouth. They look up when she speaks, though, some unreadable emotion passing over their expression like a ripple.
“Sure, Bel. What can I do for you?”
Already getting to their feet, grimacing as their bones creak, locked in one position for too long. Bellara gets it; she knows the feeling well, and hurries to flutter her hands.
“No! I mean, nothing!” She steps around the dresser to sit down, folding her hands in her lap to stop the itch to keep moving to abate her ramping anxiety. “I mean, yes! Sort of. It’s okay. Everything’s fine, I think.”
Rook arches a brow, but sits back down. When they’re closer like this, she can see just how bad they look. Their eyes are raw in a way that means they’ve been crying recently.
“Alright,” they say. “What’s the occasion, then?”
“No occasion! You’ve just, um, been in here a long time, so I wanted to check on you? And see how you are?” Five hours, thirty minutes, and seventeen-ish seconds, to be more exact, not that she was counting.
Rook huffs, a ghost of a laugh. “That’s sweet of you, but I’m—”
“Please don’t lie,” she rushes to say. She hadn’t meant to say it like that, and not so soon, but she’d known the lie was imminent and she doesn’t want to start on that foot. “Please. I know something’s wrong, and I want to help. I don’t have the words for this, but you helped with Cyrian, so I want— I want.” She stops. Resets. “Tell me how I can help you.”
Rook blinks, surprised in a dazed sort of way, hands twitching against the dark velvet.
“Please,” she emphasizes. Just in case.
“You can’t bring him back,” they rasp, turning to look back at the mirror on the floor, and it must be Varric’s mirror, then, and oh, if only she could. She’d never gotten the chance to meet him. She’d only spoken about it with Lace and Neve over warm drinks, but not with Rook. Never with Rook. She’ll never get that time back. She has to get it right this time.
Bellara reaches out, taking a hand and cradling it between her own, touch careful because their hands are wrapped in gauze. “I can’t, but we’re still here. We’re here for you, so please, just— let us be.”
Rook stares at her for a long moment, searching for something in her eyes. She only hopes she has what they’re looking for. She doesn’t have anything else. She just wants to help, wants everyone to stop hurting so much, wants to stop feeling so tired. She’s tired of losing people she loves. Rook is standing right in front of her, and they’ve never felt further away.
“The Inquisitor,” they start, venom in their voice and everything is wrong because days ago they would have called him by name, “wanted to spare Solas. And I was willing to respect that. I was willing to set that aside. But then, I… I couldn't, anymore.”
They press a hand against their forehead, eyes lost in the shadow of their hand. “Lace asked me, once, if there’s a point where you have to give up on someone. And maybe there is. I don’t really know. Maybe I didn't really care. All I know is I wanted him to hurt. I wanted to hurt him like he hurt me, and I wanted to kill him like he killed Varric. I wanted him to die knowing Varric was a better man than he could ever dream to be. I’m sorry, Bellara. I’m not a very good person.”
Bellara is already shaking her head. “Don’t say that. You’re the best person I know.”
“I’m a Crow,” Rook says, like that alone is explanation enough, the cut of their smile bitter and sharp. “And look where that got me. Look where it got them.”
“So is Lucanis. Are you blaming him, too?”
Rook rakes a hand through their hair in a swift, agitated motion. “No, I— what does it matter? You and Davrin got hurt at my command, and Varric is— Varric is dead, and I found no justice for any of you. Either I am forced to believe I could have prevented both outcomes and failed monumentally, or that nothing would have changed anything, anyways.”
Bellara’s always liked hugging Rook, because they’re about the same height so she can comfortably hook her chin over their shoulder, and even though they’re a little bony and compact with muscle, they’re always warm. When they’re in a good mood, they’ll roll their eyes and pretend to be bored by it, but they’ll always relent, which is a privilege reserved for her and her alone; Rook isn’t a touchy person, but they know it grounds her, so they always reciprocate whenever she reaches out.
Now isn’t one of those times, though. Now, when she reaches out, slowly and carefully drawing Rook into her arms, there’s no protest or eyeroll. Rook tenses, almost resistant, bracing for— something, she guesses.
“We’re okay, Rook,” she says, low and soft. “You saved me, remember? I’m okay. It’s— the fight’s over. You can relax now.”
Rook shakes once against her, a tremor that runs down their whole body. Bellara wonders if anyone’s told them that since the end. Maybe no one has ever said it before. Maybe that’s the problem: Rook has always been there, bouncing tirelessly from one problem to the next and now, the lack of action has them uneasy.
What did you see in that prison, she thinks, not for the first time but louder now as she reaches up to press their head against her shoulder, holding them as they shake with some unnamed want, some immutable grief.
“It’s over,” she says again as they slowly relax beneath her hands, exhaling soft and uneven against her neck, the smallest concession of comfort. “We’re going to be okay.”
And she hopes, desperately, that she isn’t lying.
(Bellara remembers the aftermath in pieces.
She remembers pushing herself off of Elgar’nan’s throne like a puppet without its strings. The way Rook had run to her as she’d collapsed, the blight bleeding out of her. Their arms firm around her, mutterings of I’ve got you, I’ve got you now.
I’m here, she’d sobbed. I’m alive. I’m okay. I’m here.
She remembers the way Rook had looked at her, then, mouth twisted, eyes heavy with a profound sorrow, heavy with everything Bellara had missed in three weeks and a day.
I’m sorry, they’d choked out, and Bellara hadn’t really known what for at the time, but she gets the sense now that it hadn’t been her, necessarily, that they’d been apologizing to. It’s entirely possible that an injured body on the floor at the hands of an elven god had salted that untended wound where Varric Tethras used to be.
Rook escaped from that Fade prison, but maybe they didn’t, not really, because just because you don’t regret the knowing doesn’t mean you don’t feel the loss. Doesn’t make you feel any less guilty, doesn’t lessen the hurt. A prison with a different shape, maybe, but still the same ache.
They haven’t talked about it, but Bellara thinks that no words exist to do that sort of grief justice. To lose so much and be robbed of that loss, to be robbed of even the opportunity to mourn.)
Here’s where it comes to a head— Neve finds them sitting at the edge of the Lighthouse, out where the ledge overlooks the long nothing below. It’s been five days and they still have blood in their hair, Antaam and Elgar’nan and their own all muddled together. Frankly, she’s glad she found them at all.
They look up when she approaches. Her prosthetic makes it hard to sneak up on people, but their motions are slow and beleaguered. She extends a hand toward them and they stare at her like they’re not sure what they’re seeing. Feverish, then, like she’d suspected. Overworked, underslept, the body finally giving out before the mind. Still, they reach out to take her hand, and she helps them to their feet.
Balance is off. Definitely sicker than they’re letting on. Fighting what they need every step of the way. She’d planned for this. She’s ready, now, in ways she wasn’t five days ago.
“Come with me,” Neve says, and with a firm tug starts to pull them along. They trail after her without complaint, which is the most concerning part. Rook never relents to what they need unless they’re feeling something horrid, but it’s been a pretty horrid set of weeks, admittedly. This was imminent. Inevitable.
She leads them back to their room, back to the bath she had Emmrich help her pull from the Fade. A simple brass tub, hot, clean water.
Rook stalls, shooting her a look in silent question.
“You have days of grime coating you, Trouble,” she says, keeping her voice light as she can for now. No need to raise any alarm prematurely. She reaches out to touch the short ends of their hair. “Let’s get you clean, then we can take a look at changing those bandages, alright?”
Rook hums, and they shift to help when she starts undoing the simple ties of their leathers. She helps them slip out of their clothes, strip down to the skin. She notes each wad of patchy gauze, every yellowed bruise, cataloguing it all for later.
“Get in,” she says. Rook complies wordlessly, slipping into the water and sitting down. “Turn around.”
They have a lot of scars. Not all of them are known to her, but she takes her time now. She drags the washcloth over their back, fingers carding through choppy, untended hair. The water dulls, cloudy with every pass of the cloth. It’s more gentleness than she’d thought herself capable of until recently. It’s more gentleness than Rook typically allows. These are, however, extenuating circumstances.
They haven’t talked about it, but Neve thinks it’s not quite time. What she can give them is this; a gentle break. Something soft to fall upon.
“I never told him,” Rook whispers. “I never told him I loved him.”
Neve swallows hard, tugging Rook back until their head rests against her sternum, warm water wetting the fabric. “He knew,” she says. “I promise he knew.”
“I should have told him. I’ll never get to, now. He’s gone, Neve.”
Neve swallows hard over the painful lump in her throat. Remorse won’t help her here. She misses him, too. Misses a lot of things taken from her by this one stupid job she never should have agreed to. She’s always been a sucker, and damn Varric for making her care. “I should have gotten to you sooner,” she says, pressing her lips against the side of their head. Breathes in the smell of soap and earth. “I'm sorry, Rook.”
“Don't be,” they say quietly. Already retreating back to that calm, distant place Neve can’t reach. “It was nice to let it hurt for a while.”
Rook is back from the Fade, but they had to leave things behind to survive it, Neve thinks, dipping the rag into the water again and drawing it over their injured shoulder. Rook had to leave things behind that they don’t know how to be without. Something they thought they had, all the way until the knife twisted again, ever-cruel.
She can’t fix this. That’s the bitter truth. There is no fixing this. There is only enduring, and whatever comes after.
(Seven years pass quickly. A noncognitive blur of blood and pain, dulled to an old blade, blunt teeth.
You are bought by a man named Viago. He buys you because he likes the steel in your eyes. He says he knows a killer when he sees one. He doesn't love you, but Andarateia does. They offer you a place in House de Riva.
You are eighteen winters and still angry, with blood in your teeth and a fresh cartography of scars. You know nothing but violence and have nowhere else to go, but anywhere is better than here, and you’re willing to say anything to get out of your chains.
You say yes, wanting for things you cannot name, packing their shallow comforts into the hole of a family like you’re staunching an open wound. Like you can pretend that you're eleven winters and you haven't killed anyone yet, that your hands are still a kinder shape.
You say yes.
You will regret this later.)
See, Lace has a secret. A secret she’s never told anyone. She and Rook have kissed before, back in their Inquisition days.
It was over a dead body in Halamshiral, after months of on-again off-again flirting. Both of them in the detail Leliana had snuck into the Winter Palace, her best scout and best assassin to cover all the Inquisitor couldn’t. She hadn’t seen the Venatori agent, but Rook had, and Lace hadn’t known what else to do, so she’d kissed them. They’d kissed her back.
They’d never talked about it, though. When the Breach was sealed for good, Rook had disappeared in the night without a goodbye, running back to the Crows they’d abandoned in their little act of rebellion. Seeing them again, years later, with Varric by their side had been a surprise, to say the least, but they’d been happier, too, so it hadn’t really mattered in the long run.
She thinks she’ll always be the only one that knows how deep the wound goes. She’s the only other person that really knows how it feels to know Varric, to care about him and be cared about by him, and to lose that love. She still remembers, of course. His stupid line about Harding in Hightown. They never got around to visiting Kirkwall. Maybe she owes it to him.
Still, though, she thinks this has been a long time coming. She’s the only one that really knows Rook. Knows who they were before the nickname, before Solas. She’d meant to do this earlier, but shadowing Leliana had taught her that first above all, you never move without absolute certainty. A good archer only needs one shot. This was a shot she couldn’t afford to miss.
She tails Rook to Minrathous. She knows they’ve been skulking around the city, searching for bravery in every back-alley, trying to work up the nerve to go and find the Inquisitor. Rook never asks for much, and they’ve never been good at asking for comfort, least of all when they need it most.
They’re sitting on the edge of a roof overlooking Dock Town when she finds them, cloak splayed out behind them like wings, a perch for a Crow. She folds herself into a sit next to them. They don’t jump in surprise, but they do turn to look at her. Exhaustion hangs over them in a shroud. It’s been days. She’s thought about how she wants to start this conversation.
“Do you remember Halamshiral?” she asks.
Rook blinks, like they hadn’t expected her to start with that, of all things. “How could I forget? I hate Orlais.”
“Everyone hates Orlais.” She draws up one of her knees to rest her arms on it, looking out over all the little lights down in Dock Town. “I still get mad about it, you know.”
Rook’s mouth slants into a wary frown. “About…?”
“The kiss. When I think about it.” She shrugs. “I don’t regret it, but I hate that you left.”
Rook huffs. Indignation, maybe, or a weary laugh. “I had to.”
“I know. I don’t want to even think about how much trouble you got in with the Crows.” She pauses, chewing on her words, on the way she feels. How to put it all together. “I think that’s what gets me. I think, if we could do it all again, I’d follow you.”
Rook shakes their head. “No, you wouldn’t have. People still needed you. The Inquisition needed you.”
“You did, too.” It’s not a question. She turns and watches the side of Rook’s face as they look away and she knows it’s the truth. The slight flicker of want that passes over their face before they can swallow it down. “I almost came to find you, you know. I wanted to.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. You wouldn’t have found me. Not in any way that would have mattered.”
“I would have tried.”
“I know,” Rook says simply, and the fight washes out of her, just like that. As simple as the sullen honesty that haunts their voice. “That’s what scared me. I’m not… I’m not good at people. Running was always the safe bet, so it was the bet I always took. I didn’t know better. Not until Varric. You know him, he… he just… stuck.”
They shrug, broken pieces cutting their way out of their mouth one jagged shard at a time. “I don’t— I didn’t have anything else. I was exiled from my clan. Got taken as a slave for seven years. Never got a childhood. All I knew was the fight. I had two fists and the blood in my mouth and that violence became me and I lived to exist in it.”
Oh, Lace thinks. Oh, Rook.
Rook waves a hand in a vague gesture at the space around them. “I saw him, you know. Around the Lighthouse. Like a ghost, haunting these grounds. I talked to him. Convinced myself he was there, blood magic or not, because that made it easier. It made all this— not my fault somehow.”
“It’s not your fault,” Lace says, alarmed, because she will not go one second longer letting them think it is, but they laugh sourly.
“Isn’t it? Never did anything right, always jumped without looking, picked fights without thinking about the consequences. Tried to fill every hole in my life with anger and blood. And I was useful enough like that, a sharp tool in the right hands, and Varric saw me between the bars of a cage and he’s the only person that ever thought I could be more.”
Their body curls inward like a fist, tensed to the point of pain. “Now look at him. He’s dead, and there’s another hole, and the only thing that will fill it is Solas’ head on a spike, and I'll never even get that. I’m not a good person. I’m not a good friend, and I’m not a good leader, and what do I have?”
Lace watches them for a long moment, because despite how hard they’ve been trying, lately, she knows them. She knows that they run when things get hard, when fighting is no longer an option, and only then. They’re still fighting.
“You’re just saying that to hurt. You’re saying things to make us give up on you,” she realizes, which shouldn’t be as surprising as it is: the loss always stings less when you control the circumstances, right? They flinch, and she knows she’s hit the nail on the head. “You have us. You never gave up on us. On me. Why would we give up on you?”
Rook rounds on her, teeth bared. “You’re all my responsibility, alright?! I have to take care of you because it’s the last thing Varric asked me to do, and I couldn’t keep him safe, and I couldn't keep Bellara safe, or Davrin, and I let Treviso burn because my brother was in Minrathous. I betrayed my city for him, and Minrathous burned anyway. So I have to do this right. I have to keep you all safe.” The anger dies out just as fast as it sparked, their posture concaving, pressing the palms of their hands against their eyes. “I can’t let him down. I can't lose anyone else. Varric was all I had, and I just— I just wanted to make him proud.”
And here, Lace thinks, is the problem.
Rook is back from the Fade, but Varric isn’t. Varric died in a way that Rook cannot reconcile because that death was dangled over them, sewn into their shadow but always out of reach. That regret was used against them in a way that saw fit to trap them forever, if Solas had his way. Regret powerful enough to rival a god. And they’d had to give it up before it could really settle in. They’d cut it out and left it there in order to survive, but the loss they’d suffered was different than the loss they’d thought. They had only realized the significance after: that the death was not that of a friend, but of a father.
Oh, Rook, she thinks again, a softer, sadder thought that hardens into action. She sets her jaw. “Remember when you hugged me in the Titan’s heart?” she says. “You almost died, and I brought you back.”
Rook’s mouth twitches. “I remember.”
“It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” She reaches out and hauls them into a hug, tight and firm enough that there’s no room for doubt, no possibility of escape. “I will never regret knowing you, Rook. You have given so much to me. To all of us. I am better for having known you. Never doubt that. We love you so much. I’ll remind you of that every day I need to.”
Rook freezes at the contact, but their posture shifts automatically to accommodate her. “I don’t know how to be loved,” they admit. “I think he could have taught me. If anyone could have, it would’ve been him.”
“He was good at that. Seeing you. Really seeing you.” She misses him. Maker, she misses him. It burns in the back of her eyes, and she squeezes them shut. “It’s okay to miss him and still be mad at him. It’s okay to want to move on.”
Their breath hitches, a ragged inhale, salt-heavy. “I miss him, Lace. I don’t know how to do any of this without him.”
“I know,” Lace whispers, holding them tighter like her hands alone can tell them how much she means it. “I miss him, too. But we can miss him tomorrow, too. So let’s go home, alright? Let’s go home.”
Finally, finally , Rook reaches up to clutch at Lace’s shirt as they begin to sob.
(Later, back at the Lighthouse, Rook will wake, bleary-eyed and sleep-mussed. The first real rest they’ve managed to catch since the end. Callused fingers comb along the side of their head, and they’ll curl into the touch, grasping at distant threads of consciousness.
“Lace?” they’ll mumble, shifting to look at where Lace has propped herself up on her elbow. Messy waves of red hair tumble over her shoulder, her smile fond and warm enough that Rook has to look away. “What time is it?”
Lace will shush them gently, making to push herself up. “Doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep. I'll handle things for a little while, okay?”
Rook will reach out to catch her before she can make it far, pressing cracked lips against the skin of her wrist, a trembling breath curling against her palm.
“Stay,” they say. “Please.”
Lace will brush their hair away from their eyes, the touch of her fingers feather-tender.
“Oh, Rook,” she’ll whisper. “I’m not going far.”
She will stoop to press a kiss against the corner of their mouth, feeling them relax beneath her lips, and then she will kiss them again, simply because she can.
“Go back to sleep,” she will say again, pulling away. The glassiness of Rook’s eyes makes her heart ache, and she loves them so much in this singular moment of reprieve before the world keeps spinning tomorrow and they have to find a way to navigate the aftermath.
“Alright,” Rook will breathe, kissing her wrist again before letting her go. “I love you. Will you tell the others?”
Rook never asks for much. She wishes they would. This will have to do for now.
“Of course,” Lace will promise.
And then, finally, Rook will close their eyes and sleep.)